Whether you’re building a new PC or upgrading an older system, the best RAM kit for your money depends on the platform you pick and the software you plan to run. Pretty much every desktop sold in recent years uses DDR4 and supports at least DDR4-2133 speeds. That’s the easy part.

The hard part is understanding when faster RAM matters. If you’re running an Intel-based PC with an add-in graphics card, most programs won’t respond in a meaningful way to faster or slower system memory. A few will scale upward with data rate to the highest possible speeds, including some games and programs like the file compression program 7-Zip.

On the other hand, AMD’s current architecture is affected much more by memory speeds. The company’s “Infinity Fabric” (the internal bits that link various blocks of logic inside of Ryzen CPUs) is tied to the speed of the memory bus. You can read about this in detail here. So, increased memory speeds on Ryzen- and Threadripper-based platforms often translate to real-world performance gains. In games, that means faster frame rates at mainstream resolutions like 1080p, as well as smoother performance at higher resolutions.

Lastly, memory speed makes a big difference if you’re gaming on an integrated graphics engine using either Intel or AMD processors. Since the graphics silicon baked into CPUs doesn’t generally have its own dedicated memory (as discrete graphics cards do), upping the clock rate of your system memory also generally increases performance (though the ultimate speed-up varies greatly from game to game). So, you want faster RAM for those kinds of systems if mainstream gaming is important. Keep in mind, however, that if you have to pay top dollar for the fastest RAM to get playable framerates, you’re better off buying slower system memory and an add-in graphics card.

In short, you want faster RAM if you’re gaming without a dedicated graphics card, if you’re running an AMD Ryzen system, and in some edge cases with Intel chips. But if you don’t care so much about squeezing the best performance possible from your hardware, DDR4-2133 memory should be drop-in compatible with any modern PC platform.

Quick Shopping Tips

For many people, 16GB is the current sweet spot. Programs get bigger and messier over time, 1080p and 4K video are now common, PC game files are always expanding, and websites get more complex by the day. While heavy multitaskers and power users may need 32GB to keep from tapping into slower disk-based virtual memory, 16GB is far more affordable, and sufficient for gaming and mainstream productivity tasks.

Heat spreaders look nice, but often aren’t necessary. Unless you’re running RAM at high overclocked data rates, RAM generally doesn’t generate enough heat to require serious cooling. At most speeds and settings, so long as there’s airflow in your case, bare RAM sticks should be fine. With that said, if your case has a window, you may want to pay a few dollars extra for a metal-clad kit for aesthetics alone.

Memory speeds advertised as part of an XMP profile might not be achievable on AMD-based motherboards. XMP is a sort of automatic memory overclocking setting that was designed for Intel motherboards. Some motherboard makers offer BIOS settings to help you achieve these faster speeds on AMD motherboards. But these settings aren’t present on all boards, and they don’t always work when they are present.

Want the fastest RAM speed on an Intel platform? Get a K-series CPU. Non-K-series Core i7 and Core i5 processors have the same DDR4-2666 limit as that imposed by Intel’s lesser H370 and B360 chipsets. Core i3 processors have a lower limit of DDR4-2400. While most boards lack XMP, those that have it will more easily configure XMP memory with enhanced timings. Note: some earlier DDR4-2666 kits required XMP to reach rated settings, and some later DDR4-2666 modules had both non-XMP and XMP configurations.

For those with a board that can handle its top speed and games or workloads that can take advantage of it, Patriot’s Viper Steel DDR4-4400 16GB kit is an excellent high-performance option that also skips RGB.

Keeping the kit simple has allowed Patriot to equip the Viper Steel with enhanced timings that dramatically boost the performance of certain programs, including some games. Since the market for pure gaming rigs and focused builds designed for singular tasks is still competitive, the Viper Steel DDR4-4400 sits comfortably in this niche.

This DDR4-3600 kit is only $10 (£7) more than the white-LED version and several dollars cheaper than competing products with similar latency. That makes it a great value at this speed, though slower kits have greater pricing advantages.

It may not have fancy software-controlled RGB lights, and there are faster kits on offer for higher prices, as well as budget-priced kits that cost less. But for many who don’t want or need their memory to glow like a rainbow, Patriot's Viper 4 DDR4-3400 C16 16GB (PV416G340C6K) sits in a sweet spot of price and performance.

This dual-DIMM is excellent DRAM overclocking value, while also providing some stylish red heatsinks to make sure your memory looks good enough to show off in your windowed case.

Superb performance and moderate pricing earns the Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4-3200 our Editor's Choice Award for RGB-equipped memory, though its pastel colors might be off-putting to a few builders.

Corsair’s kit beat our previous favorite, the HyperX Predator RGB, in overall performance at every speed, barring the DDR4-4000 setting that it didn’t reach. Corsair also provides a better-performing XMP value and a lower price than the competition, making the Vengeance RGB Pro the uncompromised winner here, and an excellent addition to your next RGB build.

We see a nearly-universal appeal for increased memory capacity, yet not everyone can afford the 128GB kits destined for top "Prosumer" builds. Moreover, the majority of readers don't even have the eight slots required to add all those 16GB modules. G.Skill's Trident Z model F4-3000C15D-32GTZ (32GB kit) is a relative bargain for builders who need more than 16GB of DDR4 and have only two channels to fill.

Incredible overclocking capability in our testing drives our recommendation of HyperX Gaming’s HX429C15PB3AK4/32 kit to our most-enthusiastic enthusiast readers. But we'd need to see a higher XMP rating to expend our recommendation to those who don’t overclock manually. And it’s possible of course that you won’t see the same level of manual overclocking we achieved on other motherboards or with a kit that isn’t as overclocking-capable.

So those who are looking for guaranteed speeds above this kit’s DDR4-2933 spec should pay more for one that’s rated higher using standard XMP profiles. But even without guaranteed manually tuned speeds, there’s a lot to like about this colorful kit from Kingston.

Completely agree with the first choice, i found the same kit a few weeks ago on Newegg, Viper RGB 3600 Mhz that was cheaper than Corsair Vengeance RGB, G.Skill Trident Z RGB & GeIL RGB kits and they were all only 3200 MHz! I'd argue the Viper looks the best of the RGB sets too, didn't know it existed until i came across it on Newegg. Strongly recommend for the price + speed + aesthetic combination.

rantoc

Most above need Con: RGB =P

TONSCHUH

I have 2x 8gb G.Skill TridentZ RGB @4266MHz and they are really great.

nyhcbri

Thought i would see gskill trident z F4-3200C14D-16GTZR

gone_skye_diving

This backs up what I've seen on other sites in that 2x8GB DDR4 memory is the best for stability and overclockability and performance, 2x16GB DDR4 memory cannot be overclocked as high.

david90009

You don't need a K CPU to overclock ram on an Intel platform. You just need the Z chipset. Yeah kind of confusing when the memory controller is on the CPU. But that's what happens when everything is artificially limited.

Karadjgne

Memory controller might be part of the cpu, but the cpu parameters are set by the bios, which is part of the mobo. Cpu jumps, bios tells it 'how high'.

Umm why is this posted as Best Memory: March 2015? Musta missed sumptin...

dorsai

Not rocking low latency fast memory like FlareX C14 3200mhz memory on Ryzen 2 is leaving performance on the floor...

Crashman

Quote:

Not rocking low latency fast memory like FlareX C14 3200mhz memory on Ryzen 2 is leaving performance on the floor...

We have Patriot's DDR4-3600 C16 though

hannibal

I would like to know which one of these memories Are good in AMD systems... amd and Intel handles ram differently. I would like to see two gategories. One for Intel based systems and one for amd based systems!

InvalidError

Quote:

I would like to know which one of these memories Are good in AMD systems... amd and Intel handles ram differently. I would like to see two gategories. One for Intel based systems and one for amd based systems!

AMD memory compatibility has mostly fallen to the wayside since post-AGESA 1.0.0.6 and Ryzen 2000, it would indeed be nice to have a broader update on the current state of things nearly two years later and see whether it should still be something people need to worry about.

Crashman

Quote:

I would like to know which one of these memories Are good in AMD systems... amd and Intel handles ram differently. I would like to see two gategories. One for Intel based systems and one for amd based systems!

Unfortunately there is nearly zero consistency between AMD boards, so recommending a memory kit for AMD without specifying the board would be foolish. The reason we're currently using Kingston's Hynix DDR4-2933 in our Intel motherboard reviews is because of an issue with our G.Skill B-Die DDR4-3866 on an AMD board that I was testing right before staring the Z390 reviews.